Character is key to communities

E.J. McMahon and Michael Wright, of the Empire Center for Public Policy Inc., offer suggested revisions to the State Environmental Quality Review Act in their commentary “End unnecessary barriers to state growth,” Dec. 15.

Having been the resident landscape architect for the state Department of Environmental Conservation engaged in SEQR, specifically the subjects of land use and aesthetics, it does makes sense to impose “hard deadlines and incentives to ensure the process can be completed within a year.” It also makes sense, depending on circumstances, to “tightly restrict the introduction of new issues by lead agencies later in the process” (after the scoping of issues).

However, they also recommend an elimination of the law’s reference to community and neighborhood character as “an aspect of the broadly defined environment potentially affected by projects, since the concept already is defined by local planning and zoning laws.” Unfortunately, it has been my experience that many such laws and regulations do not use aesthetic criteria to protect the cherished “character” of a community. Instead, land use criteria, different from aesthetic criteria, are wrongly used in an attempt to achieve aesthetic ends. This flaw can be corrected at the local level and successfully incorporated into the SEQR process. Local aesthetic issues can be addressed in the SEQR process in the same way DEC handles aesthetic issues of statewide significance in the Agency’s Program Policy Directive “Assessing and Mitigating Visual Impacts.”

Often a key motivator for citizens to select where they choose to live is community character. To diminish this aspect of the environment is not a good approach to reducing barriers to state growth.